A new report from crypto intelligence firm Messari details Avalanche’s (AVAX) performance in the fourth quarter of 2025, showing a stark divide between its falling token price and record on-chain activity.
Metrics Rise Despite AVAX’s Steep Drop
Avalanche’s native token, AVAX, fell sharply in Q4, dropping 59% from the previous quarter and 65.5% year-over-year. Its price declined from around $30 at the end of September to roughly $12.30 by year’s end.
The circulating market cap followed suit, falling 58.3% quarter-over-quarter to $5.3 billion. This price decline also hurt AVAX’s ranking among digital assets, as it fell from 14th to 21st place by market cap.
However, network usage grew significantly, breaking the usual connection between token price and network fees. While total fees in U.S. dollars fell 11.7%, fees paid in AVAX actually rose 24.9% from the previous quarter.
Average daily transactions on the C-Chain surged 63% to 2.1 million. A wave of liquidations during a market crash on October 10, 2025, generated over $520,000 in fees—the highest single-day total on Avalanche since February 2024.
Record Transaction and User Activity
Avalanche’s ecosystem saw new highs in activity during the quarter. Average daily transactions across all networks jumped to 38.2 million, a 4.5% increase from Q3 and a massive 1,162% rise year-over-year.
Average daily active addresses also soared, reaching 24.7 million—a 25.1% quarterly increase and an extraordinary 16,360% annual growth.
Activity on the C-Chain alone hit historic levels, with average daily transactions rising 69% from Q3, making it the network’s busiest quarter on record.
Staking metrics reflected the falling prices, with the total U.S. dollar value of staked AVAX dropping 59.9% to $2.3 billion.
Growing DeFi Base and Major RWA Expansion
Avalanche’s decentralized finance ecosystem continued to develop despite market conditions. The DeFi Diversity Score, which measures protocol concentration, rose 5.9% from the previous quarter.
While the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi fell 41.9% in dollar terms to $1.3 billion, TVL measured in AVAX actually increased 34.5%. Messari notes this divergence occurred because AVAX’s price fell faster than the underlying value in DeFi protocols.
The network’s stablecoin market cap grew modestly to $1.8 billion.
A major area of growth was in real-world assets (RWAs). RWA TVL surged 68.6% quarter-over-quarter to $1.33 billion, representing a 949% increase from the previous year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Avalanches recent performance and onchain growth designed to be helpful for both beginners and more advanced users
Beginner General Questions
1 What is Avalanche
Avalanche is a fast lowcost and ecofriendly blockchain platform designed to be highly scalable Its often called a layer 1 competitor to Ethereum allowing developers to build decentralized applications and custom blockchains
2 What does bucking the bear market trend mean
It means that while the overall cryptocurrency market has been in a decline or stagnant period Avalanche has been showing positive growth and increased activity going against the general market direction
3 What is onchain growth
Onchain growth refers to measurable increases in activity directly on the Avalanche blockchain This includes things like more daily transactions a higher number of active users increased value locked in DeFi applications and more developers building projects
4 Who is Messari and why is their report important
Messari is a wellknown crypto research and data analytics firm Their reports are considered credible and datadriven so when they highlight Avalanches growth it adds legitimacy to the trend and draws attention from investors and developers
5 What are the main benefits of the Avalanche network
Key benefits include
Speed Finalizes transactions in under 2 seconds
Low Cost Transaction fees are typically a fraction of a cent
Scalability Can handle thousands of transactions per second
EcoFriendly Uses a consensus mechanism that consumes far less energy than Bitcoins ProofofWork
Intermediate Advanced Questions
6 What specific metrics from Messari show Avalanches explosive growth
While the full report has many details common growth metrics include
Surge in Daily Transactions Often driven by new dApps or subnet activity
Growth in Total Value Locked More capital deposited in Avalanches DeFi protocols like Aave Trader Joe and Benqi
Rise in Active Addresses More unique wallets are interacting with the network